Prior paperboard bottle carriers have suffered from a number of shortcomings. Many carriers were too weak structurally to support the weight of the bottles, which resulted in the bottles becoming disengaged from the carrier. Other carriers that were stronger structurally were too complex to assemble limiting use of automated machinery in the manufacturing or bottling/packaging facility.
Many of these early paperboard bottle carriers utilized a series of radial cuts or sunburst apertures in the paperboard to hold the bottles. The radial cut-type securing devices were often unreliable because some bottles can be too heavy to be supported by the radially cut paperboard and these bottles would not be retained in the apertures and fall out of the carrier. This was especially true when the carrier had been stored for a long time. In storage, the carrier would settle over the shoulder of the bottle. The shoulder would then push upward against the radial cuts, particularly when the carriers were stacked, causing the paperboard near the radial cuts to develop a permanent upward bend. As result of the permanent upward bend, when the carrier was lifted after storage the radial cuts would fail to engage the bottles, which would then fall out of the carrier.
A significant improvement over these prior paperboard bottle carriers is provided by the invention set forth in commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,682,982, the disclosure of which is hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference. As described in the '982 patent, a bottle is retained within the bottle carrier through the cooperation of a flap with apertures formed in a top panel and a bottom panel to engage the bottle in a direction transverse to the carrier handle and to thus retain the bottles within the carrier.
Still, it has been observed that further improvement in paperboard bottle carriers may be made.